


Can't Refuse

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Blood and Water [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9120184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, any, the cavalry's not coming."AU version of 5x13. The cavalry doesn't come to rescue Sheppard's team. Just Major Lorne.





	

Teyla heard the footsteps first. “Someone’s coming.”  
  
Rodney and Ronon backed away from the door, Rodney looking nervous, Ronon looking like he was spoiling for a fight.  
  
“Think they’re done with their farce of a trial for the day?” Rodney asked. He fluttered his hands nervously. “What if they’ve reached a verdict? John -”  
  
The doors swung open, and the two guards had a hooded figure between them. A hooded figure in an Atlantis uniform. Military, judging by the black patches.  
  
“John,” Teyla began, but the two guards yanked away the hood, and it was Major Lorne.  
  
“I knew Atlantis was going to send help, but this isn’t very helpful, now is it?” Rodney asked as the guards shoved Lorne into the cell and locked the door behind him. “Does Atlantis at least know where you are?”  
  
Lorne nodded. “Mister Woolsey and the Atlantis command know exactly where I am.” He crossed the cell and sat down on the stone bench they’d taken turns using as a bed.  
  
“Then Atlantis will be coming to get us?” Rodney asked.  
  
“No.” Lorne sounded disturbingly calm. “The cavalry’s not coming.”  
  
“What the hell are you doing here, then?” Rodney cried.  
  
Lorne smiled. “I’m here to get you out.”  
  
“Get us out?” Rodney spluttered. “You’re locked in here with us, in case you didn’t notice.”  
  
“I am in here with you, yes. Locked, no.”  
  
Ronon immediately tried the door. It opened under his hand. “What -?”  
  
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”  
  
Teyla knew Major Lorne was a very efficient 2IC for John, that he performed many duties John might have ordinarily been required to do, like paperwork John disliked. She couldn’t tell how much of Lorne’s efficiency was because he was a good soldier and how much was because he was fond of John, fond in a way Teyla knew the Earth American military frowned upon. Teyla also knew that Lorne handled responsibilities that did not ordinarily belong to anyone in the military at all, such as trading for supplies like coffee and alcohol and other things thought impossible to procure in Atlantis. Lorne had a way of convincing people that they wanted what he had, and to give him what he wanted in return.  
  
Lorne had always been perfectly pleasant to Teyla, had never attempted to use his relationship with John to Teyla’s disadvantage. He even saved her an extra share of popcorn on movie nights, and Teyla had the sense that he did so not because he wanted to curry favor with John but because he was a genuinely kind person.  
  
But there was something in his stillness, in his calmness in what was a very bleak situation that made Teyla wary. Alert. What had Major Lorne done, that he could afford to be this confident about walking into their cell like this?  
  
“Why not?” Ronon asked.  
  
“We need to wait till Colonel Sheppard gets back,” Lorne said. “And then we can all leave together.”  
  
“Just leave?” Ronon narrowed his eyes. “Just like that?”  
  
Lorne smiled. “Just like that.”  
  
“What did you do?” Ronon asked.  
  
“What I do best, besides soldiering.”  
  
Ronon glanced at Teyla, who shrugged.  
  
“What is it, exactly, that you do best?” Rodney asked. He prowled closer to Lorne. “You haven’t been systematically dismantling human bodies again, have you?”  
  
A shadow crossed Lorne’s face, but his expression remained disturbingly serene. “No, it didn’t come to that, not this time.”  
  
“This time?” Rodney echoed.  
  
Lorne rose up. “It hasn’t come to that in a long time.” He reached into his jacket and drew a pistol. Teyla had assumed he was unarmed, like the rest of them. “Come on. It’s almost time.”  
  
Ronon and Teyla heard the footsteps at the same time. Lorne ducked behind Ronon, and the cell door swung open.  
  
Two guards - different from the guards who’d brought Lorne - opened the door and pushed John into the cell, then shut the door.

Teyla was pretty sure she didn’t hear it lock.  
  
“You know,” John said, “suddenly my father’s insistence that I go to law school doesn’t seem quite as stupid as it has in times past.”  
  
Teyla blinked. John never spoke of his family.  
  
“How did it go?” Ronon asked.  
  
“About as good as you’d expect,” John said. “I don’t know how much longer this is going to take. Did they bring you food?”  
  
Lorne stepped out from behind Ronon.  
  
John sucked in a sharp breath. “Evan.”  
  
Teyla had never heard John use Lorne’s first name before.  
  
“I’m here to get you back to Atlantis, sir,” Lorne said.  
  
“Does Woolsey know -?”  
  
“He knows I’m here, and he trusts that I will bring you home, with minimal bloodshed and minimal political upset.” Lorne reached out and pushed the door open. “Let’s go.”  
  
They made their way through the halls of the castle and to a door that led them across some kind of livestock pen and into the trees. Lorne seemed to know the path well, took point. Ronon watched their six.  
  
“What did you do, exactly?” John asked in a low voice as he followed Lorne through the trees. They were skirting the settlement, and Teyla assumed they were heading for the Stargate. The gate would be heavily guarded, though. How would they make it through?  
  
“Blackmail is the same in every galaxy, sir.” Lorne paused, consulted the map in his head, and turned left.  
  
“Who did you blackmail?”  
  
“No one you know.”  
  
“But enough people to get us out of here,” John confirmed.  
  
“And enough people to find out that the Genii were behind most of this. Not the Coalition itself, just this kangaroo court.”  
  
“There are dozens of planets in this coalition,” Teyla said. “How could you possibly know enough people on each planet to be able to -?”  
  
“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies,” Lorne said, a sing-song quality to his voice, like he was quoting something, and Teyla fell silent.  
  
John cleared his throat. “You know, I’m glad you use your powers for good, because if used for evil -”  
  
“I know, sir.”  
  
When they reached the edge of the treeline, Lorne signaled for them to halt, and he scanned the horizon. Then he darted forward, toward a house, and the others followed. It felt like an exercise in maintaining cover, darting from building to building, lingering in the shadows, but finally they reached the gate. Lorne signaled for them to halt once more, and then he strode out into the open, to the two guards.  
  
“Major Lorne,” one of them said.  
  
“Dinas.” Lorne greeted the man politely. He reached into his pocket and drew out a small wrapped package, pressed it into the guard’s hands. “Thank you.”  
  
Dinas grinned, avarice written into every line of his expression, and tucked the package away. Lorne dialed the gate, and at his beckoning, John and the rest of the team darted forward and through the gate. They emerged on a deserted planet.  
  
“This isn’t Atlantis,” Rodney said.  
  
“Wasn’t going to give them the gate address to Atlantis, now was I?” Lorne asked. He began dialing again.  
  
“Point,” Rodney conceded.  
  
“Just a few more decoy jumps, and then we can head home.”  
  
Teyla was very grateful when they finally reached Atlantis. Woolsey was waiting in the gate room for them when they arrived, and he ordered them to the infirmary to be checked over. He ordered Lorne into his office for a debrief.  
  
The next time Teyla was off-world, she asked her people to reach out to their contacts, find out what they knew about the result of the tribunal and John’s team escaping. Over the next few weeks, reports trickled back in. Shiana had been dethroned by what was left of her people for almost ruining an alliance with Atlantis. The Genii were furious about being thwarted yet again, but without the Coalition - indeed, with the distrust of most of the Coalition - they were powerless to bring reprisal against Atlantis, who they still also needed as an ally.  
  
No one would - or could - provide Teyla with details. Halling just shrugged and told her that he’d heard that Major Lorne had made Kelore and Dima offers that they could not refuse.  
  
Teyla watched Major Lorne, with his paperwork and his patience with Marines who had questions and the way he saved a brownie for Rodney and a piece of pie for John at supper and wondered just what it was he offered that no one could refuse.


End file.
